Mix of joy and sadness for those affected by 9/11

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The death of Osama Bin Laden has sparked a range of emotions for those most affected by the events of 9-11. Some might think the natural reaction would be jubilation. Instead, it's joy tempered with sadness.

For Laura Buck, these past 10 years haven't gotten any easier. "It's just so painful for me," she says. "I haven't given a lot of interviews, ever, because it's really tough."

Buck's mother, Georgine Corrigan, died on United Airlines flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Buck says, as evil as Bin Laden and his associates were, news of his death was still tough.

"There is stage of grief where you want revenge," she explains. "Um, nine and a half years later, you don't feel that, and I worry that there's going to be retaliation, and I just don't want to see anymore people suffer."

HPD officer Karl Steininger feels the same way. The former New York city cop was there during the terrorist attacks and has friends and colleagues who perished. He says, after hearing about Bin Laden, a brief moment of elation turned into sadness - and memories of that day, a decade ago, came rushing back.

"At that time, you heard cops screaming over the radio. It was just terrible. The screams, to this day, I can still remember what they were," Steininger says.

Bin Laden's death hasn't brought "closure" for either Steininger or Buck. The Hawaii Kai woman says it's hard to leave 9/11 behind. Aside from the yearly anniversary, she frequently receives requests for information from school kids, inmates, even authors wanting to write her mother's life story. Her loss is very public.

Her children, now teenagers, still have fond memories of their grandmother, and Buck keeps her mother's smile - and a card given to her by her mother just weeks before the attacks - close to her heart. The card reads: "What a wonderful daughter I have. I'm so proud of everything you've done. You are capable of such great things!"